It is not the analysis of the firing of nerve fibers but the actual firing of nerve fibers through stimulus that could cause a third person to report feeling pain. — Fooloso4

Physicalism is not a rejection of mind. — Fooloso4

Wayfarer used to make exactly the opposite argument, that because the content of a statement can be translated from one language to another -- as we might convert from imperial to metric, say -- this content must be somehow transcendent or whatever — Srap Tasmaner

The recognition that a living organism can be conscious, is not reductive. To look at an organism as a whole is not reductive physicalism. To claim that consciousness must come from elsewhere because a physical explanation must be reductive is misguided. — Fooloso4

In Consciousness Explained, I described a method, heterophenomenology, which was explicitly designed to be 'the neutral path leading from objective physical science and its insistence on the third-person point of view, to a method of phenomenological description that can (in principle) do justice to the most private and ineffable subjective experiences, while never abandoning the methodological principles of science.’ — Daniel Dennett, The Fantasy of First-Person Science

I can see absolutely no reason to think that individuation relies on conscious observers. — Janus

I think monism can handle that but it is worth a closer look or you will end up arguing for Dualism — Mark Nyquist

Modern science is a methodology, whose primary result is knowledge. — Pantagruel

Modern science emerged in the seventeenth century with two fundamental ideas: planned experiments (Francis Bacon) and the mathematical representation of relations among phenomena (Galileo). This basic experimental-mathematical epistemology evolved until, in the first half of the twentieth century, it took a stringent form involving (1) a mathematical theory constituting scientific knowledge, (2) a formal operational correspondence between the theory and quantitative empirical measurements, and (3) predictions of future measurements based on the theory. The “truth” (validity) of the theory is judged based on the concordance between the predictions and the observations. While the epistemological details are subtle and require expertise relating to experimental protocol, mathematical modeling, and statistical analysis, the general notion of scientific knowledge is expressed in these three requirements.

Science is neither rationalism nor empiricism. It includes both in a particular way. In demanding quantitative predictions of future experience, science requires formulation of mathematical models whose relations can be tested against future observations. Prediction is a product of reason, but reason grounded in the empirical. Hans Reichenbach summarizes the connection: “Observation informs us about the past and the present, reason foretells the future.”

The demand for quantitative prediction places a burden on the scientist. Mathematical theories must be formulated and be precisely tied to empirical measurements. Of course, it would be much easier to construct rational theories to explain nature without empirical validation or to perform experiments and process data without a rigorous theoretical framework. On their own, either process may be difficult and require substantial ingenuity. The theories can involve deep mathematics, and the data may be obtained by amazing technologies and processed by massive computer algorithms. Both contribute to scientific knowledge, indeed, are necessary for knowledge concerning complex systems such as those encountered in biology. However, each on its own does not constitute a scientific theory. In a famous aphorism, Immanuel Kant stated, “Concepts without percepts are blind; percepts without concepts are empty.” — Edward Dougherty

an idea makes you miserable, or afraid, or ecstatic then yes it can have consequences. But such responses are not inherent in the idea: the same idea might make one person afraid and another ecstatic, for example. — Janus

But, he captured the basic idea metaphorically, by using the philosophical concept of "Form". In his Hylomorph theory he made a pertinent distinction between physical Matter and metaphysical*1 Form. — Gnomon

Pi for example is a non-physical... It does not physically exist. A ratio of circle circumference to diameter. Basic math, and it's a manipulations of brain states like this that are what information is about. Compare that to DNA molecules that are physically fixed and obviously they are not the same thing. — Mark Nyquist

In any case, I don't think one's metaphysical views have any bearing on one's spiritual practice — Janus

I have often heard philosophers, including gifted ones, assert that according to transcendental idealism 'everything exists in a mind, or in minds' or 'existence is mental'. This is a radical error. It is not what Kant or Schopenhauer were saying, nor is it what they believed. On the contrary, both of them believed that the abiding reality from which we are screened off by the ever-changing surface of our contingent and ephemeral experiences exists in itself, independent of minds and their perceptions or experiences. If reality had consisted only of perception, or only of experience, then it would presumably have been possible for us to encompass it exhaustively in perception or experience, to know it through and through, without remainder. But that is not so, and the chief clout of transcendental idealism is contained in the insight that while it is possible for us to perceive or experience or think or envisage only in categories (in the ordinary, not Kant's technical, sense) determined by our own apparatus, whatever exists cannot in itself exist in terms of those categories, because existence as such cannot be in categories at all. This must mean that in an unfathomably un-understandable way, whatever exists independently of experience must be in and throughout its whole nature different from the world of our representations. But because the world of our representations is the only world we know ‚ and the only world we can ever know ‚ it is almost irresistibly difficult for us not to take it for the world tout court, reality, what there is, the world as it is in itself. This is what all of us grow up doing, it is the commonsense view of things, and only reflection of a profound and sophisticated character can free us from it. — Bryan Magee, Schopenhauer's Philosophy

I don't think one's metaphysical views have any bearing on one's spiritual practice; on one's ability to realize equanimity, non-attachment, peace of mind or whatever you want to call it. — Janus

A modern equivalent would be Cognitive Behavior Therapy: if you undertake that practice, you are not there to argue about its metaphysical or phenomenological claims, but rather to accept the set of ideas that constitute the therapy and practice in accordance with them. — Janus

Askesis of Desire
For Hadot, famously, the means for the philosophical student to achieve the “complete reversal of our usual ways of looking at things” epitomized by the Sage were a series of spiritual exercises. These exercises encompassed all of those practices still associated with philosophical teaching and study: reading, listening, dialogue, inquiry, and research. However, they also included practices deliberately aimed at addressing the student’s larger way of life, and demanding daily or continuous repetition: practices of attention (prosoche), meditations (meletai), memorizations of dogmata, self-mastery (enkrateia), the therapy of the passions, the remembrance of good things, the accomplishment of duties, and the cultivation of indifference towards indifferent things (PWL 84). Hadot acknowledges his use of the term “spiritual exercises” may create anxieties, by associating philosophical practices more closely with religious devotion than typically done (Nussbaum 1996, 353-4; Cooper 2010). Hadot’s use of the adjective “spiritual” (or sometimes “existential”) indeed aims to capture how these practices, like devotional practices in the religious traditions (6a), are aimed at generating and reactivating a constant way of living and perceiving in prokopta, despite the distractions, temptations, and difficulties of life. For this reason, they call upon far more than “reason alone.” They also utilize rhetoric and imagination in order “to formulate the rule of life to ourselves in the most striking and concrete way” and aim to actively re-habituate bodily passions, impulses, and desires (as for instance, in Cynic or Stoic practices, abstinence is used to accustom followers to bear cold, heat, hunger, and other privations) (PWL 85). These practices were used in the ancient schools in the context of specific forms of interpersonal relationships: for example, the relationship between the student and a master, whose role it was to guide and assist the student in the examination of conscience, in identification and rectification of erroneous judgments and bad actions, and in the conduct of dialectical exchanges on established themes.

In this broad and sweeping argument, Gerson contends that Platonism identifies philosophy with a distinct subject matter, namely, the intelligible world, and seeks to show that the Naturalist rejection of Platonism entails the elimination of a distinct subject matter for philosophy. Thus, the possibility of philosophy depends on the truth of Platonism. From Aristotle to Plotinus to Proclus, Gerson clearly links the construction of the Platonic system well beyond simply Plato's dialogues, providing strong evidence of the vast impact of Platonism on philosophy throughout history. Platonism and Naturalism concludes that attempts to seek rapprochement between Platonism and Naturalism are unstable and likely indefensible.

As you say, the object really exists. — Fooloso4

What’s frustrating is the obduracy of both parties on this matter. — Mikie

Physicalism is a paradigm for generating conjectures or models and not a theoretical explanation of phenomena. — 180 Proof

In terms of science, I think that science proper is the acquiring of how entities relate to each other and not what they fundamentally are…. — Bob Ross

However, I'd suggest some study of evolutionary psychology and game theory *might* disabuse you of the belief that understanding of the nature of love, justice, wisdom, and courage are hardly affected by knowledge of science. — wonderer1

Ernst Mayr, one of the architects of the modern synthesis, has been one of the most outspoken supporters of the view that life is fundamentally different from inanimate matter. In The growth of biological thought [15], p. 124, he made this point in no uncertain terms: ‘… The discovery of the genetic code was a breakthrough of the first order. It showed why organisms are fundamentally different from any kind of nonliving material. There is nothing in the inanimate world that has a genetic program which stores information with a history of three thousand million years!’

Can you provide additional reasoning for why you think "philosophy should provide the ability to explore the matter directly without needing to rely on neuroscientific research." — wonderer1

He talks about evolution as if it is a physical thing, and we've evolved a "dashboard of perception" to navigate the world. But idealism posits the existence of only mind and thought. — RogueAI

. Anthropocentric antirealism (contra Mediocrity Principle) — 180 Proof

The question we can ask of this scenario is why did a great mind splinter off and develop dissociated alters over time (as we understand time) is consciousness engaged in an act of getting to know itself? — Tom Storm

Nagel’s starting point (in Mind and Cosmos) is not simply that he finds materialism partial or unconvincing, but that he himself has a metaphysical view or vision of reality that just cannot be accommodated within materialism. This vision is that the appearance of conscious beings in the universe is somehow what it is all for; that ‘Each of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself’. — Dhivan Thomas Jones - The Universe is Waking Up

The importance of individuation, and how we individuate, is I think key to understanding the so-called wave function collapse of quantum physics — Metaphysician Undercover

The process of objectification goes deeper than cultural conditioning — wonderer1

My critique is of Sartwell, not of you. — Banno

On the other hand, as an electrical engineer, it seems rather ludicrous to think that we are having a discussion via the internet, yet there is no external reality. — wonderer1

But your approach would also fit ↪Wayfarer's love-hate relationship with analytic approaches. — Banno

Republicans want to spend more for the military, and cut more elsewhere.

How it appears to me might be different from how it appears to you. How it appears might be different under different conditions. Are we talking about the same object or different objects when there is a difference in appearance? — Fooloso4

I think the central issue here is in how we separate objects from their environment. — Metaphysician Undercover

Thoughts? — wonderer1

The mind-independent world is not naturally divided into individual parts: At the most fundamental level, we can say that external reality is a continuous flow of ongoing cosmic process. Consequently, facts or events in the sense of individual happenings do not exist in the universe at large. When you speak of a fact or event, you mean something bounded that has been lifted out of the flow of continuous activity. Since a fact must be very precisely extruded from the background, this requires that the observer who lifts it out have a purpose—a motive for undertaking to extract this one particular thing. In a universe without an observer having a purpose, you cannot have facts. As you may judge from this, a fact is something far more complex than it appears to be at first sight. In order for a fact to exist, it must be preceded by a segmentation of the world into separate things, and requires a brain that is able to extract it from the background in which it is immersed. — Pinter, Charles. Mind and the Cosmic Order (p92)